Utter rubbish ! One of eight units damaged ( most likely by lack of maintenance/human error ?). needing extensive repair and the other 7 units refurbished back to original working condition (after 30 years !)

Right - that's what I said. They came close to shutting it down at that point, but decided to put the money (and the 350 tons of new equipment) into the plant to save it. Where is the "rubbish?"

Obviously the owners DID believe it was an economical generator facility, as they continued to operate it for another 15 years . .

Yep. And they finally gave up; it was no longer economically viable. And all the climate change denial in the world won't change that.

Still waiting for an explanation of how all this repair/refurbishment/maintenance is less than what would be required by a PV plant...

I think you have forgotten the original discussion point.
Maintenance cost and requirements are not significant when we are debating the total cost of power supply.
Just refer to the EIA figures for LCOE on future plants.. ( im sure someone will not like that source !)
Solar PV..$63 /MWh
CCGas....$50 /MWh...... (No figures for HELE coal, But they would be similar)
BUT... The price for solar ignors the fact that it is an INTERMITTENT AND UNRELIABLE , and that to be a viable consistent generator, it needs full STORAGE, AND 100% BACK UP (FFueled ?) generation, for those periods that the storage cannot cover. Cost those into the game and see where you end up !

Still waiting for an explanation of how all this repair/refurbishment/maintenance is less than what would be required by a PV plant...

I think you have forgotten the original discussion point.
Maintenance cost and requirements are not significant when we are debating the total cost of power supply.
Just refer to the EIA figures for LCOE on future plants.. ( im sure someone will not like that source !)
Solar PV..$63 /MWh
CCGas....$50 /MWh...... (No figures for HELE coal, But they would be similar)
BUT... The price for solar ignors the fact that it is an INTERMITTENT AND UNRELIABLE , and that to be a viable consistent generator, it needs full STORAGE, AND 100% BACK UP (FFueled ?) generation, for those periods that the storage cannot cover. Cost those into the game and see where you end up !

Let's review.

You claimed solar power plants required a lot of maintenance. "Obviously the idea that a solar farm could function for 30-50 years without major rebuilds and upgrades , is laughable." I posted data showing your claim was unfounded.

Someone else noted that regular power plants need "major rebuilds and upgrades." You claimed "The Hazelwood ran for 53 years without any major upgrades or rebuilds." I posted data showing you were wrong; it did indeed need both major rebuilds (to repair a damaged unit) and upgrades. Hundreds of tons of them.

You are now claiming that none of that matters; "maintenance costs and requirements are not significant."

It is difficult to discuss something with someone who uses such dishonest tactics.

"X means solar will never work!"
"Here is data proving X is invalid."
"Well, X doesn't matter! What really matters is Y, which is why solar will never work!"
"Here is data proving Y is invalid."
"Well, Y doesn't matter! What really matters ix X, which is why solar will never work!"

You need a reality check..
I never said SolarPV needed. "a lot of maintenance", What i said was they wont last 50+ years.
And further, they will undoubtedly be replaced with newer technology before they get near that age.
The point being , that you cannot expect to recover costs over that time scale .
There are multiple examples of Coal power plants lasting 50+ years anod still functioning efficiently.
Hazelwood was 1 such plant of which had a failure of ONE of its 8 units, which was then repaired and it carried on producing past that 50 year mark.
Incidentally, Hazelwood NEVER stopped producing at all during those repairs !
Like i said its called "maintenance and repairs". ...if the maintenance is ignored ,..the repairs become more extensive. Costs for the maintenance and repairs is built in to the operating costs.
There are (were). Over 200 of those similar units in Australia alone, So what is the huge issue here ??

So lets review..
Fossil fueled power generation is cheaper overall than solar or wind for a utility /grid supply.

And further, they [solar PV] will undoubtedly be replaced with newer technology before they get near that age.

Whereas fossil energy will still be just about as inefficient, polluting, and maintenance-intensive as it is today.

Here's a coal ash dump for you:

Now find me a picture of a sunshine or wind ash dump. "Cheap" fossil energy is only cheap if you ignore the environmental, health, and property value costs that fossil energy producers impose upon everybody else.

This is to express my gratitude to Justin of Grin Technologies for his extraordinary measures to save this forum for the benefit of all.

But i guess you missed the comment about using GAS fired plants....?
..or even MODERN coal plants that both reduce the amount of Fly ash, and also capture it to reuse as roadbase or as a key additive in cement... ( thereby reducing the amount of cement processing required also !)
And allow me to correct your statement to reflect the full picture .....
.........."ENERGY is only cheap if you ignore the environmental, health, and property value costs that energy producers impose upon everybody else.

As some popular artist once sang.....
...." I guess you think your Shit dont stink "

Everyone should know that wind turbine manufacturing is responsible for the vast majority of radioactive sludge that exists in purpose-built tailings dam lakes, some lakes as big as 10km2 in size. Luckily for the green pro-renewable folks, most are in northern China, but the cost is total hypocrisy.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive ... scale.html

The Bill Gates Terra power Molten Chloride nuclear reactor is getting ready to be tested soon.
As said many times, the Terrapower reactor uses nuclear waste as fuel and Bill Gates claims it will be cheaper to run than coal.https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/sout ... lt-reactor

The other interesting to note with traditional light water reactors is the problem of them producing hydrogen, this is because the water immersed nuclear reactor tends to break h2o molecules apart creating oxygen and hydrogen, the passive recombiner prevents hydrogen build up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_a ... recombiner
This is the core ingredient to the Fukushima explosion, the huge build-up of hydrogen gas from the overheating creator breaking h2o apart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown

As Bill Gates says there are billions of years worth of uranium energy on earth, let alone the 1000's of years of depleted uranium nuclear waste that is just waiting to be used already stored in the USA that is ready to go and can be placed directly into his reactor.https://youtu.be/dbbq_KdPzjE?t=5m26s

Some of the core things to understand about the Bill Gates Terrapower nuclear reactor is that if anything it should be considered a 5th generation, in my opinion.
Some of its biggest advantages are that it uses the other 99% of uranium that traditional nuclear reactors don't use at all, or alternatively, it can just burn all of it. Traditional reactors need a much larger amount of enriched uranium, the Terrapower reactor doesn't. This saves on a lot of processing costs. It can essentially use the nuclear waste that has built up since nuclear power-stations began.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling ... actor#Fuel
Quote from Wikipedia on the Terrapower TWR design "the fuel consists of natural or depleted uranium-238, which can generate power continuously for 40 years or more and remains sealed in the reactor vessel during that time. TWRs require substantially less fuel per kilowatt-hour of electricity than do light-water reactors (LWRs), owing to TWRs' higher fuel burnup, energy density and thermal efficiency. A TWR also accomplishes most of its reprocessing within the reactor core. Spent fuel can be recycled after simple "melt refining", without the chemical separation of plutonium that is required by other kinds of breeder reactors. These features greatly reduce fuel and waste volumes while enhancing proliferation resistance."

The other important thing to note is that typical nuclear reactors need refueling around every 2 years. The Terrapower nuclear reactor only needs to be refuelled every 60 years, another massive increase in efficiency. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca ... de0d133d95

Bill Gates main aim is to make nuclear so economical that it can be the best economical choice for the worlds poorest 20%. <- this is his core goal, making energy so cheap it can lift the bottom 20% out of extreme poverty.
Bill Gates has claimed it repeatedly now, that his nuclear technology will be cheaper than coal at producing electricity.
Some people just seem to let Bill Gates biggest core claims go right past their brain, that Bill Gates must, therefore, be lying about his nuclear reactor, and that he is REALLY just spending large amounts of his Philanthropy fund to build nuclear reactors just for the fun of it. Which to me, is just an absurd way to think, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_ ... Foundationhttps://youtu.be/JaF-fq2Zn7I?t=25m41shttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_wave_reactor

Bill Gates historically has been known to be ultra-aggressive in his software business days, so it's logical he is also pursuing nuclear efficiency aggressively, especially when the core goal is to make it economical for the worlds very poorest people.
If you take the fact that the reactor only needs to be fueled every 60 years (that's 30 times more efficient than traditional nuclear) then times that by the fact he is using the other 99% of the mined uranium, producing vastly much more energy, rather than creating nuclear waste and extra management costs, that totals around 30 x 99 = 2,970 times more efficient nuclear technology, one could argue.

Then there are the various different TerraPower reactor designs like the molten salt coolant, this helps to make it practically meltdown proof, the insurance costs then drop as well.

One day Nuclear/Hydrogen will be the most common sources of energy in the world, Nuclear for generation of electricity and production of Hydrogen for transport including "flying cars"
Look at how easily a small company was able to whack together a fuel cell drone that can fly for almost 2 hours straight! While most Lithium drones on a fresh set of batteries last 20 minutes and quickly need a fresh battery pack because the c-rate draw murders the total battery cycles.https://youtu.be/AHlrLU7kTys

Here is another 2-3 hour fuel-cell drone, from a company called Doosan https://youtu.be/kIiMW5qQAhkhttps://youtu.be/ocS1_rJqY4M
And this bigger MMC H1 Fuel-Cell can fly for up to 4-hours! https://youtu.be/WZP4u4YP_e4?t=57s , most conventional helicopters only can fly for 2.5 hours.
^ Think about it, everyone's going to want to be able to have a flying car just like when the smart-phone came.
And there is NOTHING on the horizon that makes pure lithium battery based flying a practicality, sure this stuff is a decade away but the idea its going to be based on lithium batteries is fools garbage. 1 Kilo of Hydrogen can take a vehicle 100km in distance, you just can't get a fuel source lighter than that.https://www.forbes.com/sites/lauriewink ... 1e5dfe683a

Then there is the huge breakthrough of storing hydrogen as ammonia for even more compact and safe storage before running the ammonia through the membrane breakthrough for use as original Hydrogen. This is from the same group that invented Wifi the CSIRO, so don't write it off as nobodys.http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-08/h ... l/10082514

Look at the 25km2 solar farm average power output of 145MW, a fraction of the 1,100 megawatts a >single< Bill Gates Terra power nuclear reactor, (and it can produce the power at night time).https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topaz_Solar_Farm
Quote from page "(145 MW avg. power)"

Sure you pro-renewable charlatans/profiteers can fool the public for the next couple of years but sooner or later it will be over, and the world will be a better place.

Need a reminder? Look at the BIGGEST LITHIUM BATTERY IN THE WORLD (from Tesla).. its TINY blue contribution is pathetic, and South Australia only needs 2,000MW maximum which is less than what most coal power-stations built these days put out. 30MW for 4 hours before it runs out, useless garbage, didn't save them from having $8,823MW/h, insane power prices.
You can see the orange below of diesel distillate generation providing 230MW for days until the wind started to blow again, (not to mention all the nat-gas usage).

Tesla Grid battery South Australia, click to enlarge

If we wanted to power the modest requirements of South Australia (2000MW) entirely for a week due to little or no wind (which happens) how big would the battery would need to be?
Now that we have a real-world example of a giant battery from Tesla, including its size and costs we can do a larger scale overview to simulate what mainstream media keeps pounding the public in how future energy can be provided by "green tech energy".

Tesla Hornsdale battery South Australia

2018-09-01.jpg (112.47 KiB) Viewed 671 times

The Tesla/Hornsdale 129MWh battery reserve in SA is 22,000m2 or 0.022km2, according to GoogleMaps. I think my size estimation is fair if you consider the fact that if you are going to build square-kilometre sized batteries you are going to need road-way access in case of fires etc.

You can grab *any* random hydroelectricity dam of around the same size (this one is almost half at 34km2) and see it generates way more power for the same size, and it has the incredible convenience of creating its own power via free rainwater
Surface area 13.1 sq mi (34 km2)
Annual generation 9,780 GWh ( 9,780,000 MWh )https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Joseph_Dam

When South Australia is typically emitting 10-20 times MORE CO2 than France, how isn't the public being fooled by garbage information?
If we were comparing car emissions and the other car typically emitted 20 times MORE CO2 than the other car it would be considered a COMPLETE JOKE, yet this is what we do every day with wind vs nuclear energy on real-world data co2 emissions.
Germany is equally as bad as South Australia on massive wind-farms setups but 10-20 times more co2 emissions than France.

Nuclear France vs South Australia co2 emissions

The end of false economy energy subsidies and profiteering is close to being over. As well as all the cancerous politics over co2.

false economy green energy & government subsidy profiteering

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower
Quote "TerraPower notes that the US hosts 700,000 metric tons of depleted uranium and that 8 metric tons could power 2.5 million homes for a year. Some reports claim that the high fuel efficiency of TWRs, combined with the ability to use uranium recovered from river or sea water, means enough fuel is available to generate electricity for 10 billion people at US per capita consumption levels for million-year time-scales."

Depleted uranium storage

img_0.jpg (37.38 KiB) Viewed 875 times

Last edited by TheBeastie on Feb 09 2019 1:59am, edited 79 times in total.

And further, they will undoubtedly be replaced with newer technology before they get near that age.

Perhaps. Technology moves on.

The point being , that you cannot expect to recover costs over that time scale.

You can indeed expect to be able to recover costs over that time scale. You may choose to replace with newer technology to improve your bottom line, as always - as utilities are doing now by shutting down coal plants.

There are multiple examples of Coal power plants lasting 50+ years anod still functioning efficiently.

And even more examples of coal technology being replaced with newer technology (solar.)

Fossil fueled power generation is cheaper overall than solar or wind for a utility /grid supply.

And you are basing that on data you have posted that has been proven wrong.

Here's an idea. There are ways you can buy energy from utilities that they claim is "100% renewable." (It's all the same power of course; they take the additional money you pay and put it towards new development of renewables.) Perhaps they could start a "dirty power option" - you pay 20% more than everyone else, and all that money goes towards supporting the $10 extra per megawatt-hour that coal costs. That way you get your dirty power, and utilities will have all the money they need to do those massive rebuilds and repairs coal plants need.

Everyone knows that wind turbine manufacture is responsible for the vast majority of radioactive sludge lakes, some as big as 10km2 in size.

Only gullible types who fall for right wing propaganda.

Coal plants produce 800 million tons of radioactive waste each year in the form of bottom and fly ash, most of which ends up in deadly open air storage ponds. From your own article, it claims that that factory produces 7 million tons of waste a year.

It takes some very, very tinted glasses to look at 7 and think it is more than 800, or that 7 is the "vast majority" of 807.

And further, they will undoubtedly be replaced with newer technology before they get near that age.

Perhaps. Technology moves on.

The point being , that you cannot expect to recover costs over that time scale.

You can indeed expect to be able to recover costs over that time scale. You may choose to replace with newer technology to improve your bottom line, as always - as utilities are doing now by shutting down coal plants.

There are multiple examples of Coal power plants lasting 50+ years anod still functioning efficiently.

And even more examples of coal technology being replaced with newer technology (solar.)

Fossil fueled power generation is cheaper overall than solar or wind for a utility /grid supply.

And you are basing that on data you have posted that has been proven wrong.

You really need to check yourself before you post.
You keep comparing an unreliable, intermittent, supply, ...to a proven reliable 24/7/365 utility supply.
Even your beloved Lazards recognise and accept they are not comparable and solar alone cannot be a utility supply.
You might have noticed they included a "solar+ storage". Option, but sadly ( and unexplained) , they only included 10 hrs of storage ..52% CF...and at a cost of $82 /MWh ..
So your $46-53 for solar is not even a starting point, ...think 2 x $82 to give even a 24/7 supply ability....AND, something else for 100% back up for when the weather is not cooperating.
Now,..think again why those mainly privately owned power utilities are switching to solar and wind ??..
When will you missguided ideoligists understand what these RE ( solar & wind) systems will do ..(are doing ). to power costs, and what that will mean to the longer term viability of our economies.
We will have to find a better alternative.

.....

Last edited by Hillhater on Aug 23 2018 1:51pm, edited 1 time in total.

You really need to check yourself before you post.
You keep comparing an unreliable, intermittent, supply, ...to a proven reliable 24/7/365 utility supply.

Yes, I am. I never claimed solar was continuous. I claimed it was cheaper - which it is.

So your $46-53 for solar is not even a starting point . . .

So you reject facts in favor of your political agenda.

Here are the facts.

Solar energy is cheaper than energy from fossil fuels. Fact.
Solar is unreliable, and thus cannot provide all our power by itself. Fact.
Utilities really like cheap power, even with the lower reliability factor, so they are installing solar and closing down coal plants. Fact.
Even where there are no subsidies for solar power, countries are investing billions in solar projects to get that cheap power. Fact.
California is now generating 10.2% of its power with solar, and that percentage is growing fast. Fact.
California is now generating 43% of its power with renewables, and that percentage is also growing fast. Fact.
Solar is growing here in the US, and coal is failing, even though our president is working hard to slow down solar and subsidize coal. Fact.

I can live with those facts. Sorry if you feel they are politically incorrect.

When will you missguided ideoligists understand what these RE ( solar & wind) systems will do ..(are doing ). to power costs, and what that will mean to the longer term viability of our economies.

374,000 Americans are employed in the solar energy field alone. So yes, it's definitely having an effect on the long term viability of our economy.

But that is an unrealistic comparison....
Capacity factors for wind and solar are the result of the restricted, intermittent, weather dependent, nature of their energy source.
The Capacity Factor for Natural Gas is the result of self imposed output limitations when it is used as a "peaking" supply. or as back up to wind and solar.
Where they are used as primary generators, without those restrictions , many NG plants operate at 80-90% CF.
Wind and solar are not comparable alternative utility power supplies unless they incorperate sufficient backup or storage, and the costs associated with those.
Oh, and wait for the onslaught of experts saying that solar is only $1/W capital cost !!!

Solar energy is cheaper than energy from fossil fuels. Fact.
Solar is unreliable, and thus cannot provide all our power by itself. Fact.
Utilities really like cheap power, even with the lower reliability factor, so they are installing solar and closing down coal plants. Fact.
Even where there are no subsidies for solar power, countries are investing billions in solar projects to get that cheap power. Fact.
California is now generating 10.2% of its power with solar, and that percentage is growing fast. Fact.
California is now generating 43% of its power with renewables, and that percentage is also growing fast. Fact.
Solar is growing here in the US, and coal is failing, even though our president is working hard to slow down solar and subsidize coal. Fact.

I can live with those facts. Sorry if you feel they are politically incorrect.

When will you missguided ideoligists understand what these RE ( solar & wind) systems will do ..(are doing ). to power costs, and what that will mean to the longer term viability of our economies.

374,000 Americans are employed in the solar energy field alone. So yes, it's definitely having an effect on the long term viability of our economy.

Here are some more facts..
Solar power is not continuous, without backup it is useless for utility supply.
No country that has introduced significant ammounts of solar or wind, have seen reductions in retail power costs ( including costs for subsidies and hidden rebates etc)
California used to generate a surplus of cheap power before it introduced wind and solar. Now it has to import 30% of its electricity from neighbouring states because the inconsistent RE supply.
California now has one of the most expensive power costs in the USA.
....How many jobs lost in the Coal power supply industries as a result of the reduction in coal fueled power ?

Here are some more facts..
Solar power is not continuous, without backup it is useless for utility supply.

And yet many utilities use it without any new backup. This is because many utility loads are largely or completely sun-synchronous (like commercial building lighting and cooling.) So it reduces load on the rest of the system without requiring any new equipment.

Strange; almost as if reality is conflicting with your statements.

No country that has introduced significant ammounts of solar or wind, have seen reductions in retail power costs ( including costs for subsidies and hidden rebates etc)

Agreed. And due to inflation, no country ever will see a reduction in electrical energy costs, period. However, when you adjust for inflation, energy today is cheaper than it was in 1990 - mainly due to cheap natural gas (which now makes up the bulk of US electricity production.)

....How many jobs lost in the Coal power supply industries as a result of the reduction in coal fueled power ?

Well, let's see:

There has been only one major coal plant closure in California in the past 20 years - Mojave Power Station in 2005. About 300 people lost their jobs.

Utilities add Solar & wind without "NEW" backup.....because they know the backup is already there !!
What they do not do is accept that their "utility" cannot function without those existing systems, or that by reducing the demand on those existing plants they increase the unit cost of supply.
What is going to be fun to watch , is what they do as those existing FF facilities get retired ( or simply shut down due to the uneconomic operation as back up supplies)
It is happening already in some countries, and even our own AEMO has just warned of supply shortages fo Victoria state, on hot days this summer due to potential lack of capacity..(remember, these are the guys who recently shut down that Hazelwood coal plant )

Electricity prices...1990-2018 ??
There was insignificant wind/solar before 2000, and prices held very steady (infact reduced in the USA !)
But between 2000 and 2018, US electricity prices have increased by 65%, or just under 3% per year on average .
That is much more than the overall average rate of inflation.

But you need to put your World vision glasses on a bit more often and look at those countries with high % of wind and solar.....
South Australia electricity cost has increased 300% over that 18yr period, and Germany much more. ( 600% ?)..with most of it being in the last 10 yrs as the % of wind and solar increased.
Facts Bill....not wishful thinking !

French Environment Minister. Hulot has resigned after dissagreements over energy policy..
It means France will likely now proceed with plans to extend the life of existing ( and build more) Nuclear power plants

. French NUCLEAR REPRIEVE?
Hulot......
....... his resignation suggested a decision on extending the lifespan of France’s nuclear plants was on the way and made it less likely EDF would be split into nuclear and non-nuclear units, as Hulot proposed.

Most of EDF’s nuclear fleet was built in the 1980s and the firm wanted to extend their 40-year lifespan by 10 to 20 years, which is key to its profitability, as the value of the plants is largely written off and they generate the bulk of EDF’s profits.

Macron’s government is awaiting recommendations from nuclear regulator ASN, due by 2020-21, before deciding.

But EDF internal documents show it plans to build two new reactors by 2030 to renew its fleet. EDF CEO Jean-Bernard Levy has said publicly he expects France will eventually build 30 new-generation reactors in decades ahead.

They will now run the new prototype equipment for the next 10 weeks with the goal to perform the same workload but with “up to 95% lower carbon emissions and up to 25% lower total cost of operations.”
====================

====================
FirstEnergy Solutions closing its last Ohio and Pennsylvania coal-fired power plants

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- FirstEnergy Solutions on Wednesday night announced it plans to close its last Ohio coal-fired power plant, the W.H. Sammis plant on the Ohio River in Stratton, and its last Pennsylvania coal plant, the Bruce Mansfield plant on the River in Shippingport.

The company blamed the regional wholesale markets overseen by grid manager PJM Interconnection. It set June 1, 2021, to close Bruce Mansfield and June 1, 2022 to close Sammis.

"Our decision to retire the fossil-fueled plants was every bit as difficult as the one we made five months ago to deactivate our nuclear assets [in 2020 and 2021]," said Donald Moul, President of FES Generation Companies and Chief Nuclear Officer, in a prepared statement.

Moul added that the wholesale market system -- in which PJM dispatches the lowest priced power first -- does not value the old coal and nuclear power plants.

The company, along with its parent FirstEnergy Corp., has asked the Trump Administration to intervene in the markets and order the plants to continue operating despite their higher-priced power compared to electricity generated by new gas turbine plants and, at times, wind farms. The costs would be passed to consumers.

Moul said the company could reverse its decision if Trump takes action, a move that is sure to be challenged in federal court because markets in deregulated states are, by law, competitive.
==================

electricitymap.org quit showing a category for nuclear. Look at France. The instantaneous breakdown at the top has no category for nuclear. Even if the 24 hour chart below still shows 85% nuclear. New York same thing even though we are 20% nuclear.
.https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=co ... tryCode=FR
.

Potholer54 is also very well versed on climate change.
.https://youtu.be/52KLGqDSAjo
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Unfortunately his new energy video lacks some important information. He states that wind electricicty in China is often curtailed. Implying that they have so much electricity that they can't even use it all. But the the problem is that the good wind resources are 1,000's of km from the cities that need the electricity and there is insufficient transmission capacity to carry that much power all the way across the country.
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He also neglects to comprehend that electricity consumption in China when converted to mtce and viewed as a percentage of primary energy consumption, electricity is only 12% total energy consumtion.
.https://china.lbl.gov/sites/default/fil ... -final.pdf
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So even if they were to replace all of electricity production with 5X more Nuclear, Wind, Solar, and storage than is currently online, and gained a 2X efficiency by converting all of the built out infrastucture thermal processes and machinery to electric, if that is even conceivable, they would have to increase their 5X of new clean electricity by another 4X.
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20X their current clean energy build out. Plus 100's of TWh's of storage.
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It's not so easy as he makes it sound.

I have been trying for a year now to help him understand the relationship between energy/ economy/ population. Which for our purposes of discussion can generally be stated as being around 1:1:1. There is a slight decoupling of energy as we move more into a service economy, and slight efficiency gains are available. ie. in personal transportation (which is only 15% of total energy at most in the most car-centric USA). So eliminating any particular energy source is not just a matter of choice. If the height of this energy graph goes down, the population, or size of the economy must go down. And the population is still set to increase another 30% by 2100 before education of family planning that we are now promoting worldwide will slowly start to cause a reduction in population. The "peak child" born whenever that may be, has to reach 80 and die before the population can begin to drift down. Even at fertility rates of less the 2.
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If the economy contracts, by even just a few percent/ year, high unemployment in the double digits and defaults occur leaving 30% of the people standing in a soup line with nowhere to live. Worldwide. We have no economic system that can function on less than exponential 2% world growth at the minimum. So, when energy availabilty goes down, which it will within 20-30 years for liquid fuel which is the most useful of all energy, the economy will go down. No amount of long term forecast degradation of the ecosystems or inevitble resource depletion will be enough to cause humans to adopt a completely new social system now. Until it is forced on us by a complete crash.
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Coal is part of what we are now, and have been for 150 years, using. To keep all of the economic plates spinning. It is not just a matter of choice to abandon it. Without first replacing it. We have taken some baby steps. But examining the scale reveals an effort of futility thus far.
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New energy magazines are continually greenwashing the progress of rebuildables. Keep in mind that the green areas of this chart are not just solar and wind. They include biomass for energy. Which even in Germany with it's unprecidented massive build out of wind and solar over the last 2 decades, 2/3 of what is showing green is biomass. I imagine China would be that much or more since 3 Billion people in the world are still relegated to burning wood or dung for cooking and heat. So the 1/3 of the visible green areas representing wind and solar is still a tiny spec on the scale of total energy consumption. Don't think the 2015 date of the data renders it obsolete. Doubling nearly nothing, is still nearly nothing.
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Even if we could scap or retrofit our $100 Trillion in bult out heavy machines, and who knows how much for a complete retrofit of heavy industrial processes like steel and cement, to run on electricity, would we gain an efficiency of 50% off of that chart's total energy value? How many times would the little green slice at the top of the chart have to grow to replace carbon fuels. 100X?
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We are not even close to just leaving coal in the ground without causing a complete crash in the world economy. China is forecast to be still using 95% of it's current rate of coal in 2040. Rebuildables plus nuclear will barely outpace growth. And then it will be time to rebuild the first sets of wind and solar farms again.
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India is forecast to be using 2X it's current coal in 2040. Vietnam will be well beyond that since it has decided to invest heavily in coal to grow it's economy.
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Until we can implement an entirely new social system with an equitable distribution of wealth that can function on degrowth, and all go back to a much simpler lifestyle with less, there is no way to just leave any energy in the ground. We will be using all that we can get our hands on.
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Just for electricity in China which is only 20-30% of total energy. How much more for heat intensive industrial processes?
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